Mission Statement: Herculodge: The Essential Guide to Saving Your Manhood in an Era of Shriveling Masculinity.
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May 21, 2009

Understanding the Male Code: It's Not As Easy As You Think

Whether man wants
to admit it or not, he constantly frets over his own masculine status where
perception is often more important than reality. He therefore is constantly
measuring his own, and other men’s, masculinity through an unspoken Male Code,
which, as we shall see, is so rife with complexities that a guidebook is
desperately needed.Part of the
problem regarding man’s confusion regarding masculinity is a lack of
candor.No man is honest enough,
or brave enough, to ask any nagging questions he may have about the Male Code.
The second problem is that we assume the Male Code is somewhat obvious and
transparent, but once we take a closer look we see that behind its apparent
simplicity is an endless maze of Male Code bylaws, stipulations, and
corollaries that make manliness a very messy business indeed.

Let us begin with
the two essential features of the Male Code. The first is the dubious notion of
courage based on a high tolerance to pain and adversity. There are many
examples of this first trait but perhaps one of the most popular and
recognizable types of masculine showboating is the man who braves the frigid
outdoors in a ribbed undershirt, commonly known as a “wife-beater,” in order
that he may show the world that his muscular carapace offers sufficient
insulation from the hostile elements and as such he earns respect from his male
brethren. Such a man forever shuns wearing a sweater or coat, for to cover
himself in Gor-Tex or cashmere makes him lose face among his fellow males who
perceive his “chilliness” as a sign of wussiness. What else will he whine
about? A case of the sniffles? A mild sunburn? A rusty nail in the foot? A
small albeit deep tiger shark bite? It is therefore imperative for man to
conceal his sense of discomfort and to act as if he is sufficiently warm even
when he is not and to hope that this exercise in machismo will eventually
condition him to go the whole winter in nothing but jean cut-offs and a
tank-top, and to do so with gusto. For it is well known that man’s insecurity
makes him eager to earn Man Points from his fellow males even if traipsing half
naked through harsh weather results in frostbite and the loss of life and limb.

However, man must
understand that in his quest for Man Points his reluctance to show pain can be
taken too far resulting in the very loss of Man Points he is so desperate to
acquire.For example, as a
teenager hanging out at the lake one summer, I once witnessed a mustached
playboy with gold chain and puka shells playing Frisbee with a couple of
bikini-clad women on a nearby grassy knoll. This tanning-lotion-slicked mountebank
stepped on a bee and was stung, resulting in the inflammation of his foot.
Sweat poured down his face. His foot and ankle area kept swelling. The women
repeatedly asked him if he needed to stop the game of catch and get some
medical attention, but hell-bent on not losing Man Points, he adamantly denied
needing any assistance and continued tossing the Frisbee, trying to conceal his
growing discomfort. Soon thereafter he went into anaphylactic shock and
paramedics whisked him away in a stretcher as he screamed in agony, resulting
in the loss of Man Points. A more manly reaction would have been to respond to
the bee sting with an immediate, unflinching cry of visceral pain, followed by
him injecting himself with a dose of Epinephrine. Gritting his teeth like Jack
Bauer as he pulls a bullet from his lower abdomen and giving himself an
intramuscular adrenaline injection would have earned him Man Points whereas
being taken away on a stretcher, rendered helpless and moribund, compromised
his masculinity to the point that he could never show his face to those women
again.

The second
characteristic of the Male Code is man’s need to show off his reproductive
dominance, but this, too, often backfires. He is most vulnerable to trying too
hard to show his reproductive superiority when he feels in competition with
another man whose overpowering virility threatens his own. One salient example
comes from the hysteria that surrounded the popularity of Tom Jones, the Welsh
crooner whose sex appeal was once so great the ladies used to throw their
panties and hotel keys at him on stage. In his TV show, circa 1969 to 1972,
Jones wore tight spandex pants, which revealed a scandalous crotch bulge.
Rumors abounded. He stuffed a giant rabbit’s foot down there. Or it was a stuffed
sock. Whatever it was, the protuberance was enormous and it caused anxiety in
the men whose own loins looked dwarfed in comparison. The Tom Jones spectacle
created the necessity for men to stuff their own pants with bulge-enhancers. It
didn’t matter if Tom Jones’ crotch was “natural” or not. What mattered is that
there was the suspicion that he was relying on props and the average men of the
world couldn’t stand by passively while one man enjoyed all the attention. They
had to take matters into their own hands.

The race to have
the biggest bulge is like the suspicion surrounding steroid use in sports.
Athletes fear they are losing the edge because their competition is taking
anabolic steroids, so that they too must take synthetic testosterone. Likewise,
man’s need to out-schlong the other becomes like a nuclear arms race so that
man reaches the absurd point that he is using prosthetic scrotums that, larger
than elephant trunks, enter into the realm of diminishing effects so that his
bulge is incapable of stirring lusts but is merely eye-popping in the most
grotesque sense. Ultimately, these escalating Crotch Wars attest to male
insecurity and prove to be repellant. In other words, when man tries too hard
to draw attention to himself, he overcompensates so that his displays of
self-aggrandizement betray his fundamental smallness.

Another striking
example of masculinity overkill can be found in the Tom Cruise public relations
debacle. Tom Cruise playing the fearless hero in Mission Impossible earned him Man Points, but then he asserted his
masculinity too far when on Oprah
he jumped on a couch like an alpha chimp to show how giddy he was over his
allegedly euphoric relationship withKatie Holmes and suddenly he found his manliness was in question. His loss
of Man Points provides a valuable lesson to those men who try too hard to
grandstand their masculinity. A golden mean must be established, a fine balance
between man’s Inner Billy Goat and his more softened, refined, nurturing side.
A man who embodies this fine balance is Clint Eastwood. He showed is he is
capable of seething and squinting at his enemies while brimming with
testosterone before shooting them dead in such classic spaghetti Westerns as The
Good, the Bad and the Ugly. But later in
life he showed the maturity and sensitivity to pull Meryl Streep’s heartstrings
in The Bridges of Madison County.
Navigating between the roles of a fearless vigilante in a hardcore western and
a sensitive lover in a chick flick earned him Man Points. This feat is all the
more remarkable when we consider that the novel from which the film is based is
so pabulum-soaked that any man caught reading it will be forever reduced to a
eunuch. On the other hand, that same man is allowed to see the film version
with impunity because, he can say, it featured Clint Eastwood, his childhood
hero.

Another man who
achieves this fine balance is Simon Cowell. Judging emotionally-arrested
wannabe singers with dissociative personality disorders for American Idol is an emasculating endeavor, sure to result in the
loss of Man Points. Cowell’s loss of Man Points is exacerbated by his penchant
for wearing Euro-sleaze tight-fitting T-shirts, which highlight his saggy pecs.
But by virtue of his unforgiving meanness and unflinching scowl as he fillets
the contestants into dog chow tidbits, he earns back all his Man Points, plus
more. Cowell shows a rare talent in which he can work within the namby-pamby
entertainment industry, cohort with Paula Abdul, and actually earn Man Points.

The above examples
show that adding or subtracting Man Points is a rather tricky business,
burdened with so much confusion that the average man feels helpless and
perplexed and he is ready to raise his hands in despair and give up on his
masculinity quest altogether. But march forward he must. For maximizing his Man
Points is his primary reason for living.It is in fact the primary obsession of modern man. It animates all he
does, it consumes all his thoughts, his dreams, and his greatest fears. And why
shouldn’t it? After all, a potent dose of masculinity has spurred man to sail
the Seven Seas, to break the speed barrier, to venture into outer space, and to
invent the hookless bra. Unfortunately, men like too much of a good thing so
that they often assert their masculinity to exaggerated, self-destructive
extremes. What is needed, then, is some kind of a guide, some sort of roadmap,
that will take the average man to Man Points Valhalla.

Thus it is my role
to provide that roadmap. Of course, this begs the question: Just what is my
expertise, anyway, in the study of Man Points? A cursory glance at my
background will indeed show that my credentials are impeccable as I have spent
my entire life steeped in masculine pursuits and have enjoyed my own fair share
of Man Points. Here is a pithy biographical sketch of some of my Greatest Man
Points Moments: At thirteen, I was number one in the nation in the 148-pound
class in Jr. Olympic Weightlifting. In my late teens, I “warmed-up” with 315
pounds on the bench press without bouncing the barbell off my chiseled pecs and
with my steely ass glued to the bench. During my high school senior year during
the frosty month of December as the cheerleaders did a toilet paper raid,
streaming several toilet paper rolls over the limbs of my front yard’s
eucalyptus trees, I scampered out of the house in nothing but a pair of
underwear, so gonad-hugging that it put Tom Jones to shame, and I chased the
cheerleaders down the block to their slowly-accelerating getaway car and caught
one of them just as she was about to jump into the car’s back seat. Like a
scene from Conan the Barbarian, I flung
the flailing pompom girl over my shoulders. Then braving the blustering cold
winds in my tattered loincloth, I carried her back to my bedroom where I
conducted an interrogation and extracted all the names of the vandals.My audacity afforded me long-term Man
Points buzz at high school to the point that the other boys, when seeing me,
would freeze in silent adoration. Or breathless and stuttering, they would ask
me for my autograph. After high school, at nineteen, I was runner-up in Mr.
Teenage San Francisco. During my twenties and beyond I maintained my svelte
high school physique so that I could enjoy the luxury of fitting my rock-hard
butt cheeks in the world’s most expensive designer jeans. And I did this, it
should be added, while putting myself through college by working at an upscale
liquor store in Berkeley that boasted the largest import beer selection in the
country. Obliged to be familiar with all the beers in order to make
recommendations to the customers, I consumed more variety of beers than any man
in the country, earning me a heap of Man Points. In my middle-age, I studied
jiu-jitsu for a year with the famous Gracie family. Additionally, I have forged
friendships with Navy SEALS, British Special Forces operatives, PRIDE fighters
and other combatants in mixed martial arts fighting. I have, in short, rubbed
shoulders with the world’s most macho men, and I am privy to the irrational
impulses, biases, prejudices, and apex predator fantasies that makeup the Male
Code. From these testosterone-fueled dreams, I have culled the most important
elements that make up Man Points so that I can provide a guide for those who
feel perplexed by the dizzying labyrinth that makes up the Man Points system.

Comments

Not to be a buzzkill, but "Man stuff" is kind of an overworked concept in publishing. Still, you can post your book on Scribd.com and see if anyone would pay to read it, get some exposure, etc. Marketing matters. Self-help is more topical now, so a book on dieting/nutrition/excercise for aging men would have a better chance than a satirical autobio, IMHO. That health-guru woman on KFI Sunday mornings (can't think of her name now) has a book on the best-seller list, for example.

Ed, I see your point but I think "everything is new again" to a certain extent. i.e. there are a whole new generation of readers who may think jeff's man points essays are cool. he just has to get the words across to them. keep hammering away, thanks.

Please don't change direction. I am a new reader, and the Man Points Advice is the primary reason I am here. These essays are clever and enlightening, but still maintain an overall amusing tone that keeps me interested.

I agree with KR. No need to change direction Jeff---the direction of others changes and comes back to where it started, almost every time. That reminds me: Isn't it about time for the Three Stooges to catch on again? It seems about every 10 years or so, another batch of younger people who have never seen the Three Stooges discover them in unison---and the Three Stooges are back for a while before going dormant again.

Jeff: It's funny you say that. A good friend of mine had an interesting observation about the Three Stooges that is true in my opinion----they are funny to watch on television, but absolutely hilarious to see on the big screen. For some reason, the slapstick plays well when it's larger than life and it's not as funny on a small television. I guess you have to like that sort of humor and I generally do. I just ordered a couple DVDs for my four year old. One is live action vintage Stooges shorts while the other is ten episodes of their 1965 animated cartoon, which is probably more appealing to kids.